PNNL

Abstract

National-scale analysis of greenhouse gas mitigation options is generally carried out using top-down economic models with moderate energy detail but very limited detail in agriculture and forestry. However, a complete analysis of greenhouse gas mitigation options requires an improved representation of agriculture within the top-down economic models used for analysis of climate policy. Greenhouse gas mitigation options within the agricultural sector include changes in afforestation of agricultural lands, crop and livestock management practices, harvesting of biomass crops for fuel, and the sequestration of carbon in agricultural soils. Analysis of such options is usually carried out in a bottom-up model such as the Agricultural Sector Model (ASM). We report on activities to combine the bottom-up agricultural detail from ASM with the top-down economic and energy structure used at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), which has been used extensively for analysis of alternative carbon mitigation strategies.